Or, Physics.
As a joke, sorta, I taught my wee little soccer team some physics last fall. You know, fun goofy things like: a well-kicked ball can travel faster than a person. (We had a race. Everyone lined up, I said go, and they sprinted and I passed the ball and we saw which made it to the 20 yard mark first.) The ball does not run out of stored energy, but you do -- let the ball travel for you. (Yes, yes, I know the ball has some too when kicked, but let's not blow the young children's minds just yet, m'kay?) Goalies can train and learn to jump; but because of that crazy thing called gravity, it's harder to learn to fall fast. Ergo, shoot low. I sent them forth to run in circles and kick wildly and discuss the oeuvre of Justin Bieber. Bella complained the whole time, "But I don't like Fidgets!" A malprop which I'm going to tuck away until she wins a nobel prize for her studies in plate tectonics.
When soccer ended, I thought I'd have some time to do stuff, like wash dishes and write here. My endless hours of computer bureaucracy were over (seriously, that is mainly what the modern coach does that kills time -- practices and games are 90 minute stretches of fresh air and contempletude by comparison), complete with two additional gaping holes in my weekly schedule. But what's the principal, nature hates a vacuum? The mud encrusted cleats remained (and I believe, still do) in the mudroom while we shuttled Bella to her Nutcracker rehearsals and tried and reschedule her ice-hockey initial fitting because it conflicted with a dress rehearsal. One of these years perhaps she'll do Nutcracker! On Ice! But until then her angel outfit will remain separate from the shoulder pads. (For the record, you cannot get a hockey helmet on over a ballet bun. In case you were wondering. Also? Please look for me in the Olympic Ballet Bun Hair-do competition, I'll be in the "moving target" division.)
The holes, they filled with dump-truck alacrity -- there was quickly hockey, and more hockey. The third floor bathroom was demolished (in the longest demo ever, where it was discovered bad bathrooms merely beget other bad bathrooms) and rebuilt. And I decided after years of participation to chair (whatinfucksnamewasIthinking) a big fundraiser in my neck of the woods. Mr. ABF is co-chairing with me, and together we are pulling our hair out and madly doling out our cell phone numbers and email. Good golly, the email. How much time can it possibly chew? Very much time, as it turns out. There are no more holes to fill; I put children to nap or bed and in the space where I used to do nice things like shower and do laundry, or clean dishes and tidy up and maybe read a blog or do a crossword or curl up with a book club selection, I ponder email and spreadsheets. And I stress.
Last fall, a few long-time, long-term members of this corner of the blogosphere finally got good news. I circled around to all of their comment sections, and even wrote a few emails, and I tried so hard to explain that it was good -- no, it was great -- that they could feel joy and happiness and relief.
And sadness.
And glee, and smile uncontrollably.
And cry at the drop of a hat.
And that it was totally possible, within the realm of medical science and understood nature and math and quantum mechanics, to feel better and whole . . . and not. To finally feel full, while still having a hole that was totally impossible to fill, no matter how busy you feel you are now, no matter how emotionally and time-wise stretched. Your life may be full of cherub photos and dirty diapers and solid food and babies who won't sleep, and somehow that gap between the mountains looms there.
Funny how that happens.
++++
I think because of the crammed boxes on the calendar and the bizarro spring-winter we seem to be having here (I swear. to. god. I saw poor cherry blossoms wondering what gives around Thanksgiving, and a peek of forsythia in January, and already bulbs popping up and then pausing to ask what month we're in because this? is odd) February snuck up on me. That and it's been a whole five years. Half a decade.
I don't measure in Maddy's would-be time -- frankly, I really never have because it was so evident to me that she would have never lived, but I do measure in my children's time in relation to the very bad thing. And so it was last week when Ale was sliding down our backyard playset by himself (almost) that I realized he was the exact age that Bella was when we looked at this house. In fact, she slid down that very slide with my MIL, while we wandered through rooms inside. And ergo, he is the exact age Bella was when I found myself surprisingly, relatively easily pregnant with Maddy. And now this funny clock will start and I expect that while today and next Saturday will hurt me some, that the kick to the solar plexus will come in November '12, when Ale will be the age Bella was Maddy was born. It is then I will see, without bloodshot eyes and dehydration and leaky breasts and crushing sadness, what it's really like to have a two-and-a-half year old. I think it will be then that I'll emerge from the overgrowth, the now flowered weeds, to discover that all this time they've been covering an abyss.
++++
Black holes aren't really you know, they're filled with dense matter. So I'm realizing I can't fill these holes, and nor do they need to be filled. It is entirely possible to function, to function normally and even -- dare I say -- well, with a mini-van swallowing pot-hole in your soul. My days are filled with the stress of planning and the boring regularity of groceries, and great joy of finally having the Soccer Channel, and eating a seven course seafood feast with my neighbors, and coaching a teamful of beautiful girls, and watching my own cherub glide across the stage in what I hope is her first Nutcracker. There is unabashed smiling at a seven year old who can skate backwards and do a hockey stop, and a 1.5 year old who occasionally uses the toilet, prefers mushroom/artichoke pizza to plain, and says "crap" in context. My toddler-wannabe scores a goal with his miniature hockey set, holds the tiny stick above his head, and shouts "GOOOAAAL!" And then very methodically pushes the nets aside and boards his push-bike and rides it around, imagining life on a Zamboni. I am, all things considered, quite happy. Very happy. Strangely, I feel very blessed.
All while occasionally peering into the hole that I know leads through to another galaxy, where horrible things occur, and beauty is snuffed out before it is realized. A place packed with great sorrow and unspeakable horror. A tiny wee bit of beauty perhaps, and a precious few furry-purry kisses but mostly a nightmare that I don't dare consider on any given day.
I guess I've learned to drive around it, except for in February, where I stop and peer over the edge and remember, and ponder what might have been, and what on earth will be.
I realize now looking at my blond big-eyed children stuff their faces with warm waffles that all my children are, and were, beautiful. All of them. I love them all completely. And I do what I can in a jam-packed world to remind them -- all of them -- of that fact.
Today I park my car on the edge of the floral, cedar-fumed forest, and stroll up to the edge of the craggy canyon, peer into the stank vapor and lonely darkness, and I know it's not really an empty hole at all. So I shout into the echo and am somewhat comforted to hear it bounce back at me:
I love you, Maddy. I miss you terribly.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Boxing it Up
She handed me a familiar, sealed, white cardboard box across the counter. The absolute first thing that went through my mind was, "How can a cat's ashes possibly weigh more than a baby's?" And the second thing was, there is no better way to handle this transaction, is there.
We put Kirby down a few weeks ago.
He had been in decline over the past few years: He's 15, with a chronic heart problem, and a thyroid problem. And none of those unto themselves are anything to fret over really, but together they seemed to finally start taking a toll. Along with what I suspect was senility. Can cats go senile? I honestly have no idea. I'll spare you a lengthy cat behavior post because this could easily turn into that, but the one example that had us both wincing was when Mr. ABF walked down to the basement where we kept the cat food (so the dogs wouldn't get it) and found a mouse eating out of a cat bowl a mere foot or so away from Kirby who was also having a snack. There was the shaking, the holing up in Bella's closet for weeks while snuggled in his own damp pee stain, the vomiting accompanied by screaming and a loss of bladder control, and in the final weeks, a pattern that took him from the tree in our room to the second floor landing outside our door which he decided was a suitable litterbox, and then back again.
It was time.
We both miss him terribly; it's funny how I walked into the basement less than a week later, inhaled realizing how my house no longer stank of pee, and promptly burst into tears. We got him when he was a mere 8-10 weeks old, and in our cold Chicago apartment he used to curl up on the back of our old gas stove which was always a bit warm. Most of you would sense the danger in this and bring it to a stop, but he looked so damn cute curled up next to the tea kettle that I began calling him my little loaf.
I tore open the little white box when I walked in the door. The reason for the extra weight was not that he was big, although at 7-8 lbs he still beat Maddy. It was that they placed his ashes in a trim little wood box with his name etched in a plate on the top. His box is also currently residing on the family room bookshelf, a few shelves down from Maddy's, waiting for us to decide what to do with them.
I suppose one day we'll just know.
+++
We put Kirby down the Thursday before the Candlelight Ceremony that we go to every year at Children's, and hence, there was no post from me, no collection of names. And I felt low about it, and guilty as shit, because I always do that, and I like doing that, and I know there are people who look forward to it and new people for whom it would be meaningful and ugh. But off we went, bundled up, thrilled to arrive and see that finally! it was to be held outside in the winter chill with real candles, and not in a cramped and warm conference suite that smelled of sterilization where glow sticks hardly take the edge off the ambiance. I was so excited for the beauty of the evening, and Ale, apparently, was not. I'm sure he was warm enough save for his hands, which were little finger-cicles before long, but he decided the evening was ripe for yelling. (There are a lot of times ripe for yelling in his day.) Not wanting to disturb anyone else's evening, we whisked him to the back of the crowd where he could run around and jabber, but it meant no standing together as a family, and no paying firm attention to other people's dead children. I did manage to keep my candle lit the entire time, and keep my eye on the screen, plus Mr. ABF spelled me for a bit in the middle and took Ale off for a diaper change, but it was . . . . difficult.
At first I was frustrated. Deeply. Eye-roll-y frustrated. But as more names and pictures that filtered past, the frustration melted and I looked at my hot mess of a child, yelling while looking like he was making snow angels but in a grassy lawn, and realized I was lucky. I was so, so fucking lucky. We rode on the elevator in the parking garage after the event with a couple with no children with them. I felt embarrassed, standing there amid my jewels and riches.
This was my fifth service -- five services ago, I thought myself one of the most unlucky shmucks on the planet. This year, I scooped up my cold, yelly overtired treasures and basked. Fucking luck.
But perhaps very good that I didn't have your names with me, because I would've felt as guilty as all get out, wandering around as I was, distracted and not paying very close attention.
Maybe I can find another moment.
+++
There is a post, sitting here in edit, much like my holiday card -- which is sitting in edit on a card site, I suppose now waiting for a sale to hit because they're going to be late anyway -- catching up, explaining a bit of my crazy blogless fall. Hopefully I can throw that up here in the not too distant future, before it all becomes a moot point. If it's not already.
I hope you're all well. Happy holidays, whatever day or days or reasons you celebrate. I hope you can find some peace in there.
We put Kirby down a few weeks ago.
He had been in decline over the past few years: He's 15, with a chronic heart problem, and a thyroid problem. And none of those unto themselves are anything to fret over really, but together they seemed to finally start taking a toll. Along with what I suspect was senility. Can cats go senile? I honestly have no idea. I'll spare you a lengthy cat behavior post because this could easily turn into that, but the one example that had us both wincing was when Mr. ABF walked down to the basement where we kept the cat food (so the dogs wouldn't get it) and found a mouse eating out of a cat bowl a mere foot or so away from Kirby who was also having a snack. There was the shaking, the holing up in Bella's closet for weeks while snuggled in his own damp pee stain, the vomiting accompanied by screaming and a loss of bladder control, and in the final weeks, a pattern that took him from the tree in our room to the second floor landing outside our door which he decided was a suitable litterbox, and then back again.
It was time.
We both miss him terribly; it's funny how I walked into the basement less than a week later, inhaled realizing how my house no longer stank of pee, and promptly burst into tears. We got him when he was a mere 8-10 weeks old, and in our cold Chicago apartment he used to curl up on the back of our old gas stove which was always a bit warm. Most of you would sense the danger in this and bring it to a stop, but he looked so damn cute curled up next to the tea kettle that I began calling him my little loaf.
I tore open the little white box when I walked in the door. The reason for the extra weight was not that he was big, although at 7-8 lbs he still beat Maddy. It was that they placed his ashes in a trim little wood box with his name etched in a plate on the top. His box is also currently residing on the family room bookshelf, a few shelves down from Maddy's, waiting for us to decide what to do with them.
I suppose one day we'll just know.
+++
We put Kirby down the Thursday before the Candlelight Ceremony that we go to every year at Children's, and hence, there was no post from me, no collection of names. And I felt low about it, and guilty as shit, because I always do that, and I like doing that, and I know there are people who look forward to it and new people for whom it would be meaningful and ugh. But off we went, bundled up, thrilled to arrive and see that finally! it was to be held outside in the winter chill with real candles, and not in a cramped and warm conference suite that smelled of sterilization where glow sticks hardly take the edge off the ambiance. I was so excited for the beauty of the evening, and Ale, apparently, was not. I'm sure he was warm enough save for his hands, which were little finger-cicles before long, but he decided the evening was ripe for yelling. (There are a lot of times ripe for yelling in his day.) Not wanting to disturb anyone else's evening, we whisked him to the back of the crowd where he could run around and jabber, but it meant no standing together as a family, and no paying firm attention to other people's dead children. I did manage to keep my candle lit the entire time, and keep my eye on the screen, plus Mr. ABF spelled me for a bit in the middle and took Ale off for a diaper change, but it was . . . . difficult.
At first I was frustrated. Deeply. Eye-roll-y frustrated. But as more names and pictures that filtered past, the frustration melted and I looked at my hot mess of a child, yelling while looking like he was making snow angels but in a grassy lawn, and realized I was lucky. I was so, so fucking lucky. We rode on the elevator in the parking garage after the event with a couple with no children with them. I felt embarrassed, standing there amid my jewels and riches.
This was my fifth service -- five services ago, I thought myself one of the most unlucky shmucks on the planet. This year, I scooped up my cold, yelly overtired treasures and basked. Fucking luck.
But perhaps very good that I didn't have your names with me, because I would've felt as guilty as all get out, wandering around as I was, distracted and not paying very close attention.
Maybe I can find another moment.
+++
There is a post, sitting here in edit, much like my holiday card -- which is sitting in edit on a card site, I suppose now waiting for a sale to hit because they're going to be late anyway -- catching up, explaining a bit of my crazy blogless fall. Hopefully I can throw that up here in the not too distant future, before it all becomes a moot point. If it's not already.
I hope you're all well. Happy holidays, whatever day or days or reasons you celebrate. I hope you can find some peace in there.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Where I save myself an hour and a C-note otherwise spent at my therapist's office
I will be the better, the bigger person.
I will overcome.
I will forgive.
I will channel the general happiness and goodness that I feel most days into feeling better about these people.
These people.
His family. Our family.
I will forgive.
I will find a way to sit with them, to be with them, to converse with them, without harboring ill will, without remembering all the insane ludicrous shit they've done to us, without remembering how they treated us like utter assholes.
I will forget it all, wipe the slate clean, and forgive.
I will forgive them, all of them, every lastmotherfucking one of them, for things they don't even know they did. For things they have no idea were wrong. For things they thought were the right things. For things they're probably silently or maybe vocally proud of doing.
For keeping information from us, for not talking to us, for ignoring it. For ignoring her. For ignoring our daughter, you know the one.
I will forgive.
I will find peace with this. I will let this wash over.
Until the next time.
I will forgive.
But oh, ohmygod, how it hurts. It makes my stomach clench, my blood pressure rise, and my eyes bleed. My fingernails dig ruts into my palms, my jaw aches, my face breaks out. I hate the feeling of hate, and I'm toeing that line. I want what's right, I want justice, I want everyone to recycle and I want peace in the Middle East. I want a middle daughter born without fatal birth defects. I want everything to be as it was, even those superficial cursory relationships that weren't horribly meaningful, but weren't horrible, either. I want to resist. I want to fight.
I am out of fight.
I will do this for him, for my husband, because he's tired of my aching jaw and steely eyes and silent demeanor in the car. I will do this because I love him. I will do this for my kids, who I guess deserve to know their family, for better and worse. Especially the worse, I'm afraid they'll come to learn in the not-distant future.
I will forgive.
+++
Somewhere in the vicinity of late college-early graduate school, I made the philosophical decision to forgo hate. This wasn't so much a statement for positive thinking as much as it was for time management. I just didn't have the mental or physical space to hate. I was busy -- I had work, and school, and music, and sports, and a boyfriend, and friends -- and there was no time at the end of the day to busy my head with voodoo dolls and revenge. I saw the hate inevitably bestowed by academia tear up relationships and erode intellectual capacity and thought, dude, why? For the record, I still carry this philosophy today. I simply flat-out do not get those wackos who travel (on planes! and by car! for days!) to protest . . . well, I'm still trying to comprehend the rationale no matter how many articles I read: to protest people who are gay? At military funerals? This hate has clearly begun to diminish their linear thinking IMO, but my god, the time. Who are these people to have this space and time to travel and hate as much as they do when I don't have time to shower or do a crossword or run a load of laundry? If I had that time, those open days, I would paint my toenails and whisk my family to the beach and make elaborate cocktails for my neighbors. I'd harvest and pickle my rotting garden and weed and have a yard sale.
I would love. Even if that love were sand in my bathing suit and ears, and pickled beets and clean sheets, I would love with that time.
And here I am, loathing the idea of giving in, of caving, of forgiving. I have never held a grudge, I have never sought revenge (though I might on my husband who left me alone with two children during the first half of the Women's World Cup final while he went and had a beer with his softball team, goddammit). And the thought of forgiving this group of people makes me seethe.
So I wonder why. Why can't I let it go? Why can't I forgive?
I am, I think, at the core, a patient person. A person who takes criticism well. Someone who doesn't take things personally. I know when my daughter throws a tantrum every night the week she has hockey camp it's because she's exhausted, not because she hates me, "worst mommy in the world." So I am patient, and I quietly shepherd her to bed. I am not proud. I am not vain.
Even about my kids. Face it, my kids are loud. The one interrupts, the other yells. (The other, alas, is dead.) I am not one to defend my children in the face of criticism, because usually, I realize, it's true. I'm the one who walks into the parent/teacher conference and braces myself against the tiny desk for the onslaught of "Not listening!" and "Disruptive!" and "No focus!" and am met with a pleasant smile and an intro of, "This will be easy, she's a wonderful human being." And then I interrupt and hold up my hand and inform them that we're BELLA'S parents. You know, 1:15? Bella? And they nod and smile and I realize this crazy age-appropriate inappropriate behavior is saved for us, for testing us, in the comfort of our own home. I am not ashamed to admit this to the teacher, that my child is not an angel when she gets off the bus.
So why do I care what they think of Maddy?
I have boiled down the behavior: the telling us to hurry up and get over it already; the getting mad at us for not bubbling with joy at new babies; for not traveling to see new babies (and missing school in the process, just saying); for wrecking family plans involving fat grandbabies (not like we had plans or anything, just saying); for not going to the first memorial service with us because "it might rain;" for not returning calls, or not picking up the phone, and ignoring us when they didn't like when we pointed out this behavior; for continuing not to speak to us about Maddy, ever; for not sending me gifts at Christmas; for everyone not telling us a brother was expecting a baby -- until the baby was born because they "thought we knew," or "didn't know how" to tell us, even when everyone was here, in my house, drinking my wine and eating my food the week before said birth; for not communicating to us for years to even know that telling us about this birth wouldn't bother us; for assuming they knew how we felt (angry and bitter for years, apparently) without having the nuts to simply ask us how we were feeling. . . .
and it comes down to this: Maddy was an inconvenience to them. She busted plans and made people roll their eyes and have to watch what they say. Boo hoo. Maddy says, my bad.
But really, who cares? Why do I care?
Is my husband right, that they just didn't know what to say, or were too stupid to know what to do or say, or thought they were being nice by not bringing things up? This is hard business, it's hard to know what to say, it's hard to know what to say to the neighbor who just told us she's separated from her husband, or the cousin whose wife just found out she had breast cancer. Maybe we should cut them a break, maybe I should ease up.
Maybe it's because she's dead. Maybe it's because she can't speak for herself, she can't contradict the claim that she's either an angel or a demanding brat. Maybe it's because after the moment is past, I can't hold her and know tomorrow is another day, another exhausting day at camp where she'll laugh and joke and fall and laugh some more and come home in a mess and cry that she can't wait to go back the next day.
Maybe it's because other people knew exactly what to do, what to say. We didn't speak to a lot of people, and a lot of them gave us time and then circled back around and knew exactly how to re-enter the conversation. Many other friends got pregnant and told us and the sun didn't implode and our friendships are still intact. Many other family members talk about Maddy now without stammering or halting. How can some people get it so wrong when others get it so right?
Maybe it's because it's family, and I have this stupid notion that family should know better. That family should be there for you, that family should shoulder you and prop you up, and pack you in a cute tote and carry you until you can walk by yourself. As if family was ever all that to anyone. As if families were anything but places where children were procreated and where you lived until you went to college. So what that my family wasn't perfect, but treats me pretty damn well now. My husband says we need to forgive because they're family. I can't forgive, because they're family?
Maybe I can't because I need something to channel my anger toward and this is it. Because there is no other channel, because otherwise there is just sadness.
Maybe I am wasting valuable nail-polish and vegetable-jarring time sitting here spewing about this. I should just stop with the introspection and spit out the hairball of hate and forgive.
I will forgive.
I can do this.
Maybe.
I will overcome.
I will forgive.
I will channel the general happiness and goodness that I feel most days into feeling better about these people.
I will forgive.
I will find a way to sit with them, to be with them, to converse with them, without harboring ill will, without remembering all the insane ludicrous shit they've done to us, without remembering how they treated us like utter assholes.
I will forget it all, wipe the slate clean, and forgive.
I will forgive them, all of them, every last
For keeping information from us, for not talking to us, for ignoring it. For ignoring her. For ignoring our daughter, you know the one.
I will forgive.
I will find peace with this. I will let this wash over.
I will forgive.
But oh, ohmygod, how it hurts. It makes my stomach clench, my blood pressure rise, and my eyes bleed. My fingernails dig ruts into my palms, my jaw aches, my face breaks out. I hate the feeling of hate, and I'm toeing that line. I want what's right, I want justice, I want everyone to recycle and I want peace in the Middle East. I want a middle daughter born without fatal birth defects. I want everything to be as it was, even those superficial cursory relationships that weren't horribly meaningful, but weren't horrible, either. I want to resist. I want to fight.
I am out of fight.
I will do this for him, for my husband, because he's tired of my aching jaw and steely eyes and silent demeanor in the car. I will do this because I love him. I will do this for my kids, who
I will forgive.
+++
Somewhere in the vicinity of late college-early graduate school, I made the philosophical decision to forgo hate. This wasn't so much a statement for positive thinking as much as it was for time management. I just didn't have the mental or physical space to hate. I was busy -- I had work, and school, and music, and sports, and a boyfriend, and friends -- and there was no time at the end of the day to busy my head with voodoo dolls and revenge. I saw the hate inevitably bestowed by academia tear up relationships and erode intellectual capacity and thought, dude, why? For the record, I still carry this philosophy today. I simply flat-out do not get those wackos who travel (on planes! and by car! for days!) to protest . . . well, I'm still trying to comprehend the rationale no matter how many articles I read: to protest people who are gay? At military funerals? This hate has clearly begun to diminish their linear thinking IMO, but my god, the time. Who are these people to have this space and time to travel and hate as much as they do when I don't have time to shower or do a crossword or run a load of laundry? If I had that time, those open days, I would paint my toenails and whisk my family to the beach and make elaborate cocktails for my neighbors. I'd harvest and pickle my rotting garden and weed and have a yard sale.
I would love. Even if that love were sand in my bathing suit and ears, and pickled beets and clean sheets, I would love with that time.
And here I am, loathing the idea of giving in, of caving, of forgiving. I have never held a grudge, I have never sought revenge (though I might on my husband who left me alone with two children during the first half of the Women's World Cup final while he went and had a beer with his softball team, goddammit). And the thought of forgiving this group of people makes me seethe.
So I wonder why. Why can't I let it go? Why can't I forgive?
I am, I think, at the core, a patient person. A person who takes criticism well. Someone who doesn't take things personally. I know when my daughter throws a tantrum every night the week she has hockey camp it's because she's exhausted, not because she hates me, "worst mommy in the world." So I am patient, and I quietly shepherd her to bed. I am not proud. I am not vain.
Even about my kids. Face it, my kids are loud. The one interrupts, the other yells. (The other, alas, is dead.) I am not one to defend my children in the face of criticism, because usually, I realize, it's true. I'm the one who walks into the parent/teacher conference and braces myself against the tiny desk for the onslaught of "Not listening!" and "Disruptive!" and "No focus!" and am met with a pleasant smile and an intro of, "This will be easy, she's a wonderful human being." And then I interrupt and hold up my hand and inform them that we're BELLA'S parents. You know, 1:15? Bella? And they nod and smile and I realize this crazy age-appropriate inappropriate behavior is saved for us, for testing us, in the comfort of our own home. I am not ashamed to admit this to the teacher, that my child is not an angel when she gets off the bus.
So why do I care what they think of Maddy?
I have boiled down the behavior: the telling us to hurry up and get over it already; the getting mad at us for not bubbling with joy at new babies; for not traveling to see new babies (and missing school in the process, just saying); for wrecking family plans involving fat grandbabies (not like we had plans or anything, just saying); for not going to the first memorial service with us because "it might rain;" for not returning calls, or not picking up the phone, and ignoring us when they didn't like when we pointed out this behavior; for continuing not to speak to us about Maddy, ever; for not sending me gifts at Christmas; for everyone not telling us a brother was expecting a baby -- until the baby was born because they "thought we knew," or "didn't know how" to tell us, even when everyone was here, in my house, drinking my wine and eating my food the week before said birth; for not communicating to us for years to even know that telling us about this birth wouldn't bother us; for assuming they knew how we felt (angry and bitter for years, apparently) without having the nuts to simply ask us how we were feeling. . . .
and it comes down to this: Maddy was an inconvenience to them. She busted plans and made people roll their eyes and have to watch what they say. Boo hoo. Maddy says, my bad.
But really, who cares? Why do I care?
Is my husband right, that they just didn't know what to say, or were too stupid to know what to do or say, or thought they were being nice by not bringing things up? This is hard business, it's hard to know what to say, it's hard to know what to say to the neighbor who just told us she's separated from her husband, or the cousin whose wife just found out she had breast cancer. Maybe we should cut them a break, maybe I should ease up.
Maybe it's because she's dead. Maybe it's because she can't speak for herself, she can't contradict the claim that she's either an angel or a demanding brat. Maybe it's because after the moment is past, I can't hold her and know tomorrow is another day, another exhausting day at camp where she'll laugh and joke and fall and laugh some more and come home in a mess and cry that she can't wait to go back the next day.
Maybe it's because other people knew exactly what to do, what to say. We didn't speak to a lot of people, and a lot of them gave us time and then circled back around and knew exactly how to re-enter the conversation. Many other friends got pregnant and told us and the sun didn't implode and our friendships are still intact. Many other family members talk about Maddy now without stammering or halting. How can some people get it so wrong when others get it so right?
Maybe it's because it's family, and I have this stupid notion that family should know better. That family should be there for you, that family should shoulder you and prop you up, and pack you in a cute tote and carry you until you can walk by yourself. As if family was ever all that to anyone. As if families were anything but places where children were procreated and where you lived until you went to college. So what that my family wasn't perfect, but treats me pretty damn well now. My husband says we need to forgive because they're family. I can't forgive, because they're family?
Maybe I can't because I need something to channel my anger toward and this is it. Because there is no other channel, because otherwise there is just sadness.
Maybe I am wasting valuable nail-polish and vegetable-jarring time sitting here spewing about this. I should just stop with the introspection and spit out the hairball of hate and forgive.
I will forgive.
I can do this.
Maybe.
Friday, July 29, 2011
I am Six(tween), Going on Seven(tween)
This pretty much sums it up:
A week or so ago, I took Bella to a great sale for Fall clothing. Included in our purchases were a pair of boots (black, her choice), a very cute fall jacket (sort of softly military style), and a black tunic thing that she liked and I thought was ingenious because it could be worn as a dress, with leggings, with jeans, with a shirt under it, etc. I never intended these items to be put together apparently, because when she came home and did a fashion show for Mr. ABF and put them all on along with the impulse-buy zebra rimmed sunglasses, she suddenly looked like she was heading out for an evening with Selena and The Bieber.
"Are they too old for her? I didn't think they were when I bought them," I whispered to Mr. ABF, biting my lip.
"No, not separately, but together like that . . . "
And then not 48 hours later, she modeled her self-directed outfit for her week at my aunt's farm: Denim overalls with a short-sleeved red and white checkered shirt avec peter pan collar. Suddenly she looked Rockwell-esque, the likely recipient of Opie's first small crush.
She is growing up quickly, now stuck in that no-(wo)man's land between girl and GIRL. Not quite a tween, but too old, too big for the little girl's tastes and toys and music and activities. Not quite old enough for mom to allow painted fingernails and carte blanche downloading of Katy Perry tunes. Too old for picture books, onto chapters, but not quite ready to leave Eloise behind. Because she has always been verbally mature I find I often have to remind myself, "She's only six. She's only six."
Until this week.
:::
Bella has chosen to spend the last week of her seventh year at my aunt's farm, on a sleep-away camp adventure. She has been begging to do this since she was three, and we both thought this year the time was ripe. She is learning to ride with reins (she has been on a horse since she was 2.5; but always led), she is milking cows and will help take them to the county fair. She is mucking stalls, making smores, and sleeping in my aunt's guest room by herself. It is the first time Bella has been away from us like this, for this long, and it is odd. She is clearly over the moon and having the time of her life evidenced by the pictures and phone calls, so it's hard to be sad really, and yet.
(Yes, she did that herself, and yes, the horse's hair DOES in fact look more well-groomed than her own. This surprises you, why?)
She was practically bursting at the seems in the car on the way out, every time I checked the rear-view she was in a giddy grin of anticipation. And suddenly, halfway there, right in the middle of a pop tune that I was trying to bond with her with by singing at the top of my lungs ("'I smell like a minibar. . . ' Goodgravyonabiscuit, WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE WE LISTENING TO?"), she burst into tears.
"Honey, what's wrong?"
"I forgot Hobbes and Kaleo."
Her favorite stuffies, the ones she sleeps with every night (one for three years running), the ones I didn't even put on the checklist because I assumed they'd be in her sweaty hands on the way to the car.
Oof. Too late to turn around, now. I thought for a few seconds, and realized at this age, I too slept with something -- my blanket. My beaten and soft pastel hand-made blanket that I put between me and my pillow every night, through camps, until college. It's in my son's room now, folded on a window seat. I realized if it 'twere me, I would spend the entire day stressed out that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep that night. I knew she was going to be on a horse that afternoon, and did not want her remotely distracted. So it took about twenty seconds of silence from me and snuffling from the backseat:
"I'll drive them back out this afternoon. They'll be there by bedtime."
"Thanks, mom."
We join her today, on her birthday, for a family attended barbecue that she drew the menu up for, and a cake decorated with dogs that she designed. She will eat too much sugar, she will not want to come home.
She will be seven.
:::
Coincidentally, at my Aunt's farm, we will also be at the very spot where 11 years ago today Mr. ABF and I got married. Right there, under the tree in the meadow. It was beautiful, and more importantly, the food was outrageous. Little did we know.
I had this strange moment recently driving by the local IvyU on the freeway, where the touchline on the soccer field practically abuts the right shoulder. I drive by here all the time, but I had Bella in the car and we were en route to her first pro soccer game so it compelled me to say, "Bella, I played soccer there once. Right there, on that field." And I looked up and realized only then that the field is in the shadow of Children's. To think I played there, as a young woman, in the shade of a building that would someday come to house the most absurd and tragic moment. With that guy I was dating. It's these moments of hindsight foreshadowing that sometimes make me catch my breath: I mean obviously it wasn't, who knew, it was just fucking luck. Like the luck that conspired to place me and my future husband together at the same place, and the luck that held off the rainstorm right at 5:30 p.m. on the afternoon of our wedding (when it poured a mere two miles north). Just luck, good, bad, indifferent. Sometimes you can't even know when you're in it.
"For better or worse . . . "
We glossed over those words, figuring we had sorta met both obligations when Bella was born on our anniversary four years later. But no, not even close. Not even in the same universe.
I try not to play the game anymore when I wonder what a moment foreshadows. It's altogether too frightening. I'd rather sing bad pop music and look at wedding photos when I was smaller and wildly innocent.
:::
Today Janis is remembering Ferdinand from her new home. She is an entire country away from the place where Ferdinand left her, and came to her, and left her finally. (Although given the East coast heat wave, she may wonder how this is so different from the desert she left behind.) I had no way of knowing about Ferdinand four years ago today, when I struggled to keep my composure during a very thrown-together party for Bella. No way to know as sad as I was, scooping ice cream for hot children in bathing suits who would picturesquely strew themselves around my porch to eat, that someone else was sad, too. The deepest kind of sad. I couldn't have known, but now that I do, it seems obvious. Now I think of Janis and Ferdinand often on this day, while I flip through my own memory books of Bella growing bigger and us hinting at gray, because I know that story, too. Strangely enough, it fits right in with my life, perfectly.
Happy Birthday, Ferdinand.
Happy Birthday, Bella.
Happy Anniversary, Us.
A week or so ago, I took Bella to a great sale for Fall clothing. Included in our purchases were a pair of boots (black, her choice), a very cute fall jacket (sort of softly military style), and a black tunic thing that she liked and I thought was ingenious because it could be worn as a dress, with leggings, with jeans, with a shirt under it, etc. I never intended these items to be put together apparently, because when she came home and did a fashion show for Mr. ABF and put them all on along with the impulse-buy zebra rimmed sunglasses, she suddenly looked like she was heading out for an evening with Selena and The Bieber.
"Are they too old for her? I didn't think they were when I bought them," I whispered to Mr. ABF, biting my lip.
"No, not separately, but together like that . . . "
And then not 48 hours later, she modeled her self-directed outfit for her week at my aunt's farm: Denim overalls with a short-sleeved red and white checkered shirt avec peter pan collar. Suddenly she looked Rockwell-esque, the likely recipient of Opie's first small crush.
She is growing up quickly, now stuck in that no-(wo)man's land between girl and GIRL. Not quite a tween, but too old, too big for the little girl's tastes and toys and music and activities. Not quite old enough for mom to allow painted fingernails and carte blanche downloading of Katy Perry tunes. Too old for picture books, onto chapters, but not quite ready to leave Eloise behind. Because she has always been verbally mature I find I often have to remind myself, "She's only six. She's only six."
Until this week.
:::
Bella has chosen to spend the last week of her seventh year at my aunt's farm, on a sleep-away camp adventure. She has been begging to do this since she was three, and we both thought this year the time was ripe. She is learning to ride with reins (she has been on a horse since she was 2.5; but always led), she is milking cows and will help take them to the county fair. She is mucking stalls, making smores, and sleeping in my aunt's guest room by herself. It is the first time Bella has been away from us like this, for this long, and it is odd. She is clearly over the moon and having the time of her life evidenced by the pictures and phone calls, so it's hard to be sad really, and yet.
(Yes, she did that herself, and yes, the horse's hair DOES in fact look more well-groomed than her own. This surprises you, why?)
She was practically bursting at the seems in the car on the way out, every time I checked the rear-view she was in a giddy grin of anticipation. And suddenly, halfway there, right in the middle of a pop tune that I was trying to bond with her with by singing at the top of my lungs ("'I smell like a minibar. . . ' Goodgravyonabiscuit, WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE WE LISTENING TO?"), she burst into tears.
"Honey, what's wrong?"
"I forgot Hobbes and Kaleo."
Her favorite stuffies, the ones she sleeps with every night (one for three years running), the ones I didn't even put on the checklist because I assumed they'd be in her sweaty hands on the way to the car.
Oof. Too late to turn around, now. I thought for a few seconds, and realized at this age, I too slept with something -- my blanket. My beaten and soft pastel hand-made blanket that I put between me and my pillow every night, through camps, until college. It's in my son's room now, folded on a window seat. I realized if it 'twere me, I would spend the entire day stressed out that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep that night. I knew she was going to be on a horse that afternoon, and did not want her remotely distracted. So it took about twenty seconds of silence from me and snuffling from the backseat:
"I'll drive them back out this afternoon. They'll be there by bedtime."
"Thanks, mom."
We join her today, on her birthday, for a family attended barbecue that she drew the menu up for, and a cake decorated with dogs that she designed. She will eat too much sugar, she will not want to come home.
She will be seven.
:::
Coincidentally, at my Aunt's farm, we will also be at the very spot where 11 years ago today Mr. ABF and I got married. Right there, under the tree in the meadow. It was beautiful, and more importantly, the food was outrageous. Little did we know.
I had this strange moment recently driving by the local IvyU on the freeway, where the touchline on the soccer field practically abuts the right shoulder. I drive by here all the time, but I had Bella in the car and we were en route to her first pro soccer game so it compelled me to say, "Bella, I played soccer there once. Right there, on that field." And I looked up and realized only then that the field is in the shadow of Children's. To think I played there, as a young woman, in the shade of a building that would someday come to house the most absurd and tragic moment. With that guy I was dating. It's these moments of hindsight foreshadowing that sometimes make me catch my breath: I mean obviously it wasn't, who knew, it was just fucking luck. Like the luck that conspired to place me and my future husband together at the same place, and the luck that held off the rainstorm right at 5:30 p.m. on the afternoon of our wedding (when it poured a mere two miles north). Just luck, good, bad, indifferent. Sometimes you can't even know when you're in it.
"For better or worse . . . "
We glossed over those words, figuring we had sorta met both obligations when Bella was born on our anniversary four years later. But no, not even close. Not even in the same universe.
I try not to play the game anymore when I wonder what a moment foreshadows. It's altogether too frightening. I'd rather sing bad pop music and look at wedding photos when I was smaller and wildly innocent.
:::
Today Janis is remembering Ferdinand from her new home. She is an entire country away from the place where Ferdinand left her, and came to her, and left her finally. (Although given the East coast heat wave, she may wonder how this is so different from the desert she left behind.) I had no way of knowing about Ferdinand four years ago today, when I struggled to keep my composure during a very thrown-together party for Bella. No way to know as sad as I was, scooping ice cream for hot children in bathing suits who would picturesquely strew themselves around my porch to eat, that someone else was sad, too. The deepest kind of sad. I couldn't have known, but now that I do, it seems obvious. Now I think of Janis and Ferdinand often on this day, while I flip through my own memory books of Bella growing bigger and us hinting at gray, because I know that story, too. Strangely enough, it fits right in with my life, perfectly.
Happy Birthday, Ferdinand.
Happy Birthday, Bella.
Happy Anniversary, Us.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Maybe Not So Much
I remember sitting in my first support group with a bunch of parents whose children had died at Children's, and played the little game in my head. Maddy was still fresh in my mind, it was maybe only two months out. I listened to each of these parents say a bit about their children and how they died and I began a slow burn.
"Here's a picture of her junior prom. I'll never see her senior prom." At least you got to see a prom at all!
"She was really weak, but she called over everyone in the room and told us something, just a sentence each." My god, your child SPOKE?
"He turned two in the hospital. We had a party in his room." You had a BIRTHDAY PARTY?!
Within 10 minutes I thought I was the lowest of the low, the saddest of the sad. Scrape me up and put me out why don't you, y'all have no idea.
But I went back again, and again, and listened. And my mindset, after a few months, had changed considerably.
No way would I have been able to handle a year or two or more at Children's. No. Way.
I know my child felt no pain, I have no idea on earth how you could stand and watch your child feel that way.
Funny, I know your child died at 19, but I really related to what you just said.
It was in one of these meetings, in fact, where I first uttered the name of this blog. A number of conversations and a lapse of silence later and a quiet mom whose thirteen-year-old had died of cancer turned to me and said, "What was that you said again? "Awful but functioning?" Can I borrow that?"
Absolutely.
I know you've compared yourself to others before, it's human nature. It's ok. It's what you do with it and how the information changes with time that's important. I've got a post up today over on Glow in the Woods.
"Here's a picture of her junior prom. I'll never see her senior prom." At least you got to see a prom at all!
"She was really weak, but she called over everyone in the room and told us something, just a sentence each." My god, your child SPOKE?
"He turned two in the hospital. We had a party in his room." You had a BIRTHDAY PARTY?!
Within 10 minutes I thought I was the lowest of the low, the saddest of the sad. Scrape me up and put me out why don't you, y'all have no idea.
But I went back again, and again, and listened. And my mindset, after a few months, had changed considerably.
No way would I have been able to handle a year or two or more at Children's. No. Way.
I know my child felt no pain, I have no idea on earth how you could stand and watch your child feel that way.
Funny, I know your child died at 19, but I really related to what you just said.
It was in one of these meetings, in fact, where I first uttered the name of this blog. A number of conversations and a lapse of silence later and a quiet mom whose thirteen-year-old had died of cancer turned to me and said, "What was that you said again? "Awful but functioning?" Can I borrow that?"
Absolutely.
I know you've compared yourself to others before, it's human nature. It's ok. It's what you do with it and how the information changes with time that's important. I've got a post up today over on Glow in the Woods.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Right Where I Am: Four Years, Three Four Months
(But Who's Counting.)
It's hot as Hades. I'm standing by the grill, monitoring the meat, and I look up and see that Ale has crawled into the (rusted, dirty) Radio Flyer. Mr. ABF picks up the handle and slowly starts pulling him around the yard. They quickly get to the spot in the grass, the exact spot under the chestnut kinda by the fence, where exactly four years ago right about now Bella did something cute. I honestly can't remember what it was, she was not yet three. But I do know it was a bright day like today, and I remember the ensuing conversation as if it happened five minutes ago:
Mr. ABF looked at me with a gentle, slightly sly smile and said, "How could you not want another one?" And I immediately burst into tears and practically shouted, "How could I lose another one?"
And through these ghosts, a silent dad slowly pulls a red wagon loaded with a fat baby gripping onto the sides for dear life as if he's plummeting downward through the hairy s-curves of a rickety roller-coaster.
I grin widely. I realize I have tears brimming over the corners of my eyes.
Must be my allergies.
+++
When I saw Angie was doing this project, I thought, "Great Idea!" That was a while ago. I absolutely couldn't think of what to write, how to say it.
Four-plus years out is . . . easy. No wait, it's complicated. It's . . . hard to explain. It's probably why I don't blog so much anymore truth be told -- it's just hard to find a metaphor or a story that encompasses how it is I feel about IT. I'm generally happy and go-lucky and "back to normal" (whateverthehell that is), and honestly I can go for some amount of time without even thinking about IT. (And this is while wearing a bracelet with her name on it. Duh people, I tell you.) I sat completely bewildered in front of the paper this week as I read about a three year old who drowned, and was so overwhelmed with sadness for the parents, and wondered how the younger sibling would grow up with this history, and it honestly took me a day or so to realize why this story was hitting me with the amount of detail that it was.
It's a part of me, it's in there, it's not "healed" or "done" or "closed." But nor is it open, bleeding, cutting, hurtful. It's just there. It happened.
It.
+++
I know subsequent kids aren't supposed to provide the salve that mends the wound but there is a significant way in which Ale's presence has changed my mindset.
Maddy was -- and is -- a medical mystery. No one knows what happened, only that it was on a grand scale and fatal and weird. We gave Children's our permission to send out her samples for testing and review whenever they saw fit, without having to notify us each individual time and only contacting us should they get a hit on something. I didn't see the point of the up/down endless stream of waiting by the phone, so other than the first round of information following her autopsy which included a run through the Genome project and slides sent to numerous specialists around the country and even the world, we have received no news. No news in this case is no news. (I know they still run tests; when I called to tell them I was considering getting pregnant in '09, my point person said, "Oh! We were just talking about Maddy. We're running two more tests at Baylor." Clearly, nothing came of them.)
In retrospect the radio silence consumed me. It's not that I needed a cause or something to blame, but I needed information in order to move forward. To accept that one of our family heritages contained something lethal. To let Bella know in due time. To wonder if we could now get pregnant and test for this killer DNA, or use donor gametes. Or, perhaps, it was infection/abruption -- for sure, less likely to happen again, a moment of terrible luck. While I knew deep down I would probably never know, it seemed cruel that so much of my life was tied up in the knowing.
When we decided to run with the specialists who were on the side of infection/abruption and get pregnant again, Maddy came to the fore: The medical conundrum, the fetus who showed no signs of trouble through 32 weeks. The girl who stayed in an extra week, most likely because my body was the only thing keeping her alive. Maddy's identity is largely medical because that's all she was when she was here, and for that year that I conceived and gestated her brother, she was on my lips constantly. Why I wasn't excited, why I needed that test, why I wasn't setting up a room, why I was seeing a high risk doctor. It felt good to speak of her so frequently, even though what I was talking about was liquefied white matter and fatal cardiovascular malformations. I recently read Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and I got -- I mean, I really got -- how easy it is to anthropomorphize body parts after a person is dead. It's not that the family members are dumb or don't get that tissue doesn't feel pain, it's that that's all they know. It's why I catch myself saying, "Maddy's going back to Baylor," when really Maddy is dead and her ashes are on my bookcase and tissue from her leg is somehow flying in the mail to Texas.
But it's her, and I get to say her name, and this is how it is.
Ale was born, he came home, and suddenly . . . it was as if this entire chunk of Maddy's being ceased to matter. Do I want to know what happened? Well I suppose on some philosophical plane it might be interesting, but it no longer consumes me or glues me to the spot unable to think about tomorrow or ten years from now.
But because this was so much of how I thought about her, now I . . . think about her less. And when I do think about her, it tends to be other stuff -- how she looked, how soft her hair was, how little I was able to hold her.
I don't think that's a bad thing actually, it's a bit freeing really. And it doesn't mean I still don't get walloped occasionally by the grief stick. Some night in the past week I went in to check on Bella who was lying in perfect profile, so peacefully. Mr. ABF and I have recently commented that with the adult teeth coming in and this latest growth spurt that has her looking more tween than child, that her facial features are providing a glimpse of how she'll look in the future rather than that extension of the baby photos. And yet, in the quick moment that I took her in, just so, I was suddenly transported back to the night Maddy died, when I limped into the dark house and went immediately to Bella's room and crawled into bed with her. It remains one of my more visceral memories.
+++
At some point during the week after Maddy died, Mr. ABF told me something (now VP) Joe Biden once said. He was on Meet the Press, and the subject of his first wife's and young daughter's deaths in a car accident came up. Tim Russert (may he RIP) asked if this was a "defining moment" in his life and Biden said defiantly (and I'm paraphrasing), "No. It was the worst time of my life to be sure, but it did not define me."
And we decided, Mr. ABF and I, that we wanted to get there, to be that, to believe that. To be able to tell people and have them say, "Ah, now I understand how you made it through," rather than, "Ah, now I understand you." (When I explained this to my therapist, it was more, "Ah, now I understand how you made it through," rather than, "Ah, now I get why you're holding that martini.") I did not want to become a parody for lost children, a bereft, emotionally unsound, alcoholic, vacant excuse for a mother like that dumb-ass caricature of a (still) grieving mother in The Time Traveler's Wife. I wanted to remember Maddy to be sure, but somehow do it without breaking down, without resorting to morbidity, without disturbing those around me. I didn't want to deny, but I wanted to memorialize.
And yet I didn't want it to define me. I wanted it to be a bad moment, but not shape my existence.
I had no fucking clue how.
I still don't. But I'm a lot closer to that idea than I ever in a million years thought I would be. I tell people now who don't know but know me a bit and they're surprised; they ask great questions, I don't fall apart, it's filed away in the "life is sometimes really fucking shitty" drawer. And we continue our conversation about the book of the month, or our kid's hockey practice, or why on earth spring seemed to last two minutes this year. To them I'm a mother (now I suppose of three), a historian, a reader, a sports fan, an old-house nut, a gardener, a baker, a cook, a gal who likes a good beer, who needs a new vet, a runner, a wife, a politically cynical harpy who loves a good sale.
It happened. And I'm still functioning.
It's hot as Hades. I'm standing by the grill, monitoring the meat, and I look up and see that Ale has crawled into the (rusted, dirty) Radio Flyer. Mr. ABF picks up the handle and slowly starts pulling him around the yard. They quickly get to the spot in the grass, the exact spot under the chestnut kinda by the fence, where exactly four years ago right about now Bella did something cute. I honestly can't remember what it was, she was not yet three. But I do know it was a bright day like today, and I remember the ensuing conversation as if it happened five minutes ago:
Mr. ABF looked at me with a gentle, slightly sly smile and said, "How could you not want another one?" And I immediately burst into tears and practically shouted, "How could I lose another one?"
And through these ghosts, a silent dad slowly pulls a red wagon loaded with a fat baby gripping onto the sides for dear life as if he's plummeting downward through the hairy s-curves of a rickety roller-coaster.
I grin widely. I realize I have tears brimming over the corners of my eyes.
Must be my allergies.
+++
When I saw Angie was doing this project, I thought, "Great Idea!" That was a while ago. I absolutely couldn't think of what to write, how to say it.
Four-plus years out is . . . easy. No wait, it's complicated. It's . . . hard to explain. It's probably why I don't blog so much anymore truth be told -- it's just hard to find a metaphor or a story that encompasses how it is I feel about IT. I'm generally happy and go-lucky and "back to normal" (whateverthehell that is), and honestly I can go for some amount of time without even thinking about IT. (And this is while wearing a bracelet with her name on it. Duh people, I tell you.) I sat completely bewildered in front of the paper this week as I read about a three year old who drowned, and was so overwhelmed with sadness for the parents, and wondered how the younger sibling would grow up with this history, and it honestly took me a day or so to realize why this story was hitting me with the amount of detail that it was.
It's a part of me, it's in there, it's not "healed" or "done" or "closed." But nor is it open, bleeding, cutting, hurtful. It's just there. It happened.
It.
+++
I know subsequent kids aren't supposed to provide the salve that mends the wound but there is a significant way in which Ale's presence has changed my mindset.
Maddy was -- and is -- a medical mystery. No one knows what happened, only that it was on a grand scale and fatal and weird. We gave Children's our permission to send out her samples for testing and review whenever they saw fit, without having to notify us each individual time and only contacting us should they get a hit on something. I didn't see the point of the up/down endless stream of waiting by the phone, so other than the first round of information following her autopsy which included a run through the Genome project and slides sent to numerous specialists around the country and even the world, we have received no news. No news in this case is no news. (I know they still run tests; when I called to tell them I was considering getting pregnant in '09, my point person said, "Oh! We were just talking about Maddy. We're running two more tests at Baylor." Clearly, nothing came of them.)
In retrospect the radio silence consumed me. It's not that I needed a cause or something to blame, but I needed information in order to move forward. To accept that one of our family heritages contained something lethal. To let Bella know in due time. To wonder if we could now get pregnant and test for this killer DNA, or use donor gametes. Or, perhaps, it was infection/abruption -- for sure, less likely to happen again, a moment of terrible luck. While I knew deep down I would probably never know, it seemed cruel that so much of my life was tied up in the knowing.
When we decided to run with the specialists who were on the side of infection/abruption and get pregnant again, Maddy came to the fore: The medical conundrum, the fetus who showed no signs of trouble through 32 weeks. The girl who stayed in an extra week, most likely because my body was the only thing keeping her alive. Maddy's identity is largely medical because that's all she was when she was here, and for that year that I conceived and gestated her brother, she was on my lips constantly. Why I wasn't excited, why I needed that test, why I wasn't setting up a room, why I was seeing a high risk doctor. It felt good to speak of her so frequently, even though what I was talking about was liquefied white matter and fatal cardiovascular malformations. I recently read Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and I got -- I mean, I really got -- how easy it is to anthropomorphize body parts after a person is dead. It's not that the family members are dumb or don't get that tissue doesn't feel pain, it's that that's all they know. It's why I catch myself saying, "Maddy's going back to Baylor," when really Maddy is dead and her ashes are on my bookcase and tissue from her leg is somehow flying in the mail to Texas.
But it's her, and I get to say her name, and this is how it is.
Ale was born, he came home, and suddenly . . . it was as if this entire chunk of Maddy's being ceased to matter. Do I want to know what happened? Well I suppose on some philosophical plane it might be interesting, but it no longer consumes me or glues me to the spot unable to think about tomorrow or ten years from now.
But because this was so much of how I thought about her, now I . . . think about her less. And when I do think about her, it tends to be other stuff -- how she looked, how soft her hair was, how little I was able to hold her.
I don't think that's a bad thing actually, it's a bit freeing really. And it doesn't mean I still don't get walloped occasionally by the grief stick. Some night in the past week I went in to check on Bella who was lying in perfect profile, so peacefully. Mr. ABF and I have recently commented that with the adult teeth coming in and this latest growth spurt that has her looking more tween than child, that her facial features are providing a glimpse of how she'll look in the future rather than that extension of the baby photos. And yet, in the quick moment that I took her in, just so, I was suddenly transported back to the night Maddy died, when I limped into the dark house and went immediately to Bella's room and crawled into bed with her. It remains one of my more visceral memories.
+++
At some point during the week after Maddy died, Mr. ABF told me something (now VP) Joe Biden once said. He was on Meet the Press, and the subject of his first wife's and young daughter's deaths in a car accident came up. Tim Russert (may he RIP) asked if this was a "defining moment" in his life and Biden said defiantly (and I'm paraphrasing), "No. It was the worst time of my life to be sure, but it did not define me."
And we decided, Mr. ABF and I, that we wanted to get there, to be that, to believe that. To be able to tell people and have them say, "Ah, now I understand how you made it through," rather than, "Ah, now I understand you." (When I explained this to my therapist, it was more, "Ah, now I understand how you made it through," rather than, "Ah, now I get why you're holding that martini.") I did not want to become a parody for lost children, a bereft, emotionally unsound, alcoholic, vacant excuse for a mother like that dumb-ass caricature of a (still) grieving mother in The Time Traveler's Wife. I wanted to remember Maddy to be sure, but somehow do it without breaking down, without resorting to morbidity, without disturbing those around me. I didn't want to deny, but I wanted to memorialize.
And yet I didn't want it to define me. I wanted it to be a bad moment, but not shape my existence.
I had no fucking clue how.
I still don't. But I'm a lot closer to that idea than I ever in a million years thought I would be. I tell people now who don't know but know me a bit and they're surprised; they ask great questions, I don't fall apart, it's filed away in the "life is sometimes really fucking shitty" drawer. And we continue our conversation about the book of the month, or our kid's hockey practice, or why on earth spring seemed to last two minutes this year. To them I'm a mother (now I suppose of three), a historian, a reader, a sports fan, an old-house nut, a gardener, a baker, a cook, a gal who likes a good beer, who needs a new vet, a runner, a wife, a politically cynical harpy who loves a good sale.
It happened. And I'm still functioning.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
A Pessimist is Never Disappointed
Well, um, maybe sometimes.
I'm writing about optimism/pessimism, positive/negative thinking, and finding that silver lining in the shit storm. Today, over on Glow in the Woods.
I'm writing about optimism/pessimism, positive/negative thinking, and finding that silver lining in the shit storm. Today, over on Glow in the Woods.
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